Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1887-07-11
DUNGEON ANDPALACE
DR. TALMAGEs DISCOURSE YESTERDAY
THgTINEOPNY DEPARTUREISATHAND.
Our Ideas Of the Christians Dsath-Paul in the
fullianum-A Sacrifice Ready for The Altar
Fastened to the PIlar-MartyrdOm
Gives Man Chance for Life.
Special Telegram 10 The Register.

Special Telegram 10 The Register.
THE HAMPToNs, July 10.-The Brook
lyn Tabernacle being closed for enlarge
ment, the Rev. 7. Dewitt Talmage, ID,
pastor, spends his first Sabbath away from
his flock the present season, at this sum-
mer home. His subject for to-day was;
From Dungeon to Palace" and his text;
"The time of my departure is at hand"-2
Timothy, iv., 6.
The way out of this world is so blocked
up with coffin and hearse, and undertaker's
spade and screw-driver, that the Christian
can hardly think as he ought of the most
cheerful passage in all his history. We
hang black instead of white over the place
where the good man gets his last victory.
We stand weeping over q heap of chains
which the freed soul has shaken off,
and we say: Poor man ! what pity
il was he had to come to
thisw Come to what? By the time the
people have assembled at the obsequies,
that man has been three DAYS so happy
that all the Joy of earth accumulated would
be wretchedness beside it, and he might
better weep over you because you have to
stay, than You weep over him because he
has to 20. 1t is fortunate thing that a
good man does not have to wait to see his
own obsequies, they would be so discOrd-
ant with his own experience. If the lsrae-
lites
SHOULD GO BACK TO EGYPT
and mourn over the brick-kilns they have
left, they would not be any more silly than
that Christian who should fOrsake heaven
aud come down aud mourn because he had
to leave this world. Our ideas of the
Christians death are morbid aud
sickly. We look upon it as a dark
hole in which man stumbles when
his breath gives out. This whole sub
ect is odorous with varnish and disin-
fectants, instead OF being sweet with
mignonette. Paul, in my text, takes that
great clod of word death" and throws
it away, and speaks of his ''departure"-a
beautiful. bright, suggestive word, descrip-
tive of every Christians release.
Now, departure implies starting place
aud place OF destination. When Paul
left this world, what was the starting
point? II was a scene of great physical
distress s"It was the Tullianum, the lower
dungeon of the Mamertine prison. The
top dungeon was bad enough, it having no
means of ingress or egress but through an
opening in the top. Through that the
prisoner was lowered, and through that
came all the food and air and light reCeiv-
ed. 1t was terrible place, that upper
dungeon; but the Tullianum was the low
er dungeon, and that was still more
wIetched the only light and the only air
coming through the roof, and that roof the
floor OF the upper dungeon. That
was Paul's last earthly resi-
dence. 1t was dungeon Just
six feet and half high. 1t was a doleful
place. Ii had the chill of long centuries
of dampness. 1t was filthy with the long
incarceratiOns OF miserable wretches. 1t
was there that Paul spent his last days on
earth, and it is there that see him to-day,
in the fearful dungeon, shivering, blue
with the cold, waiting for that old overcoat
which he had sent for up to Troas, 0nd
which they had not yet sent down, not
withstanding he had written for it.
If some skilllul surgeon should 90 into
that dungeon where Paul is incarcerated,
we might find out what are the prospects
of Paups living through the rough impris-
onment. In the first place, he is an old
man, only two years short OF seventy. AT
that very time when he most needs the
warmth and the sunlight and the fresh air,
he is
SHUT OUT FROM THE SIN.
What are those scars on his aucles? Why
those were gotten when he was fast, his
feet in the stocks. Every time he turned,
the flesh on his ankles started. What are
those scars on his hack? You know he
was whipped five times, each time getting
thirty-nine strokes-one hundredand nine
ty-five bruises on the back count them
made by the Jews with rods of elm-wood,
each one of the one hundred and ninety
five strokes bringing the blood. Look at
Paul's face and look at his arms. Where
did he get those bruises? l think when he
was struggling ashore amidst the shivered
timbers of the shipwreck. see cash in
Paul's side. Where did he get that? /
think ne got that in the tussle with high
waymen, for he had been in peril Of rob.
bers, and he had money of his own. He
was mechanic as well as an apostle. and
think the tents he made were as good as
his sermons.
There is a wanness about Pauls looks
What makes that? think q part of that
came from the fact that he was for twenty
four hours on plank in the Mediterran-
can Sea, suffering terribly, before he was
rescued; for he says positively. 81 was q
night aud day in the deep" Oh, worn
out, emaciated old man! surely you must
be melancholy; no constitution could en-
dure this and be cheerful. But press my
way through the prison until come up
close to where be is, and by the faint light
that streams through the opening see on
his face supernatural joy, and bow be-
fore him, aud | say: aged man, how can
you keep cheerful amidst all this gloom ?"
His voice startles the darkness of the
place as he cries out: II am now
READY To BE OFFERED,
and the time of my departure is at hand. u
Hark! what is that shutting OF feet in the
upper dungeOn7 Why, Paul has an inyi-
tation to banquet, and he is going to dine
to-day with the king. Those shutting
feet are the feet Of the eIecutioners. They
come, and they cry down through the hole
of the dungeon: Hurry up, old man.
Come now; get yourself ready" Why,
Paul was ready. He had nothing to pack
up. He had no baggage to take. He had
been ready good while. l see him rising
up and Strengthening out his stiffened
limbs, and pushing back his white hair
from his cFeviced forehead, and | see him
looking up through the hole in the roof OF
the dungeon into the face of his execution
er, and hear him say: II am now ready to
be offered, and the time of my departure is
at hand" Then they lift him out OF the
dungeon, and they start with him to the
place of execution. They say: Hurry
along, old man, or you will feel the weight
of our spear. Hurry along" 'How far
Is it." says Paul, 1--WE have to travel?'
Three miles" three miles is good way
for an old msn to travel after he has been
whipped and crippled with maltreatment.
But they soon get to the place OF execution
-Acquse Salvia-and he is fastened to the